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Okay, so I know I really shouldn't. But I'm looking to start a fourth, (well technically third) army of Drukhari/Dark Eldar. My reasoning is their list is small and thus I could fill it up with models. Plus, there were some Kabalites at my local store and ever since DOW: Soulstorm, I always tended to want these guys. Not sure how they'll do in the meta, but I'm getting them for lore and cool factor. Any suggestions for someone wanting to add Drukhari/ Dark Eldar to their collection and a possible army?

I already have a near 2k list of Orks, a 1k list of mixmatch lesser Chaos Daemons, and a shoebox of Necrons. But I want this army to be a hobby and fluff army and to try out my art skills. Not really built for competitive play.

Well I personally lost my mind over using colour shift paints on my dark eldar. I did 3 different schemes: 1 for haem/wych/kabal spread. The Dark Eldar kits have lots of bits that can be added to the models that look great but interfere with transport and table top use. Usually it's better to leave those pieces off the bigger models, except in your case. Also add slaves to the boats, looks awesome, vehicle kits are essential.

Right now, we only have one detachment, and its features are designed in such a way that you want at least one Archon, Succubus and Haemonculus in your army. For starters, these give you extra pain tokens off the top- one PT for having at least one of each- so no bonus for doubling up leaders of the same type. But that's just part of it.

Normally, burning a pain token allows you to empower ONE unit. In this detachment, however, there is a strat called Alliance of Agony that allows you to burn one pain token to empower an Archon's unit, a Succubus' Unit and a Haemonculus' unit... But only if all three leaders are on the board. This is where doubling up can be helpful- if you don't double up, losing a single one of your leaders eliminates your possibility to use this relatively powerful strat.

Also: The timing is slightly off for you to take advantage of my personal favourite aspect of the DE- their Crusade rules, which in 9th were by far the best Crusade rules in the game.

In 9th, Crusade provided rules that allowed you to play a skirmish game set in Commorragh, whether the various subgroups of your army could compete against each other for territory in a shadow war of espionage and deceit. While nowhere near as involved as Necromunda, this minigame had enough complexity to rival Kill Team's Spec Ops as a skirmish campaign. This made it great for people who were building an army, because while you're waiting for all 2k points to get painted, you've got the mini-game for parts of the army that are ready to play.

The reason the timing is bad is that Drukhari don't have their dex for 10th yet, and technically all of 9th's bespoke content is all blown up now. Currently, the only armies that can Crusade at full effectiveness are Space Marines (surprise!), Tyranids, Admech and Necrons. That being said, if your group is down for it, the Crusade minigame (affectionately known as Drukharimunda) can still function in 10th with a little bit of common sense.

Good breakdown from PenitentJake there.

Drukhari are in a slightly weird place right now, especially for someone looking to start them.

For the last couple editions, GW was really leaning into segregating our codex into 4 chunks (kabals, cults, covens, and mercs who play nice with everyone). In 9th edition, I would have advised you to choose one of those first three chunks as the starting point for your army. However, the current rules strongly encourage you to take a little of everything. Failure to do so means you're basically playing without a detachment rule or half your strats, but playing a conventional take-everything list means a huge chunk of your list is written for you.

Our characters can each only join a single squad (unless you count the Court as its own thing). So once you've taken an archon, succubus, haemonculus, and their mandatory warrior, wych, and wrack squads plus transports to carry them, you're looking at a lot of points being spent without any real decisions from your side. Which is made all the more frustrating by the fact that our army has never been less customizable (in terms of wargear, unit size, who characters hang out with, etc.)

Also, the army is revolving really heavily around its pain token gimmick and recycling those pain tokens/getting the most out of them. On one hand, this is kind of a neat mini-game that gives the army its own feel. On the other hand, it creates a lot of pressure to take certain options such as Cronos or the enhancement that lets you generate a pain token every turn. Which loops back around to making the army feel like its lists are written for you.

Basically, you have to build and play drukhari in a kind of specific way right now, and that might diminish some of the army's appeal depending on what you like about them.

Personally, I'm hoping the codex detachments give us a lot more freedom in army construction.

Not to talk you out of an army you're passionate about, but I'm struggling to find motivation to put my dark eldar on the table right now. I started playing pre-codex in 5th edition. The only time I've been less excited about my dark eldar was in 7th edition. And even then, they usually had a place as allies to my craftworlders thanks to the webway portal mechanics and the ability to punch above their weight class with poison. And current the portal is gone and poison no longer works against non-infantry.